Slashdot Mirror
Cybercriminals Exploit Björk's Biophilia App To Compromise Androids
An anonymous reader writes "The Russians who put out fake versions of Angry Bird Space and Instagram for Android last week have competition. Biophilia, a musical experiment by Bjork into the world of apps, has been ported to Android as a Trojan." Maybe not totally surprising; as the submitter reader continues, "last year at the launch of the app, Bjork was quoted in an interview inviting pirates/hackers to attempt to port her code over from iPhone to other platforms."
Am I the only one getting tired of this "android trojan/malware of the day" press releases by the anti-virus authors?
Seems more and more like pure astro-turfing for their own products, trying to create a sense of insecurity in the users of the biggest mobile OS just so that they can sell their products.
Most users won't be affected by this malware - the play store won't have it, and most of those that install apps from outside the store are techs who know what they are doing. The few affected will be the usual ones, those who think they can ignore the warning when they allow install from untrusted sources, and then ignore the permissions requested by the app. If you're dumb enough to do that, to install games from a suspicious site, that want to make calls and send SMS, then no anti-virus will save you. And it isn't the OS fault if you choose to ignore all safety precautions and disable all protections.
I'm not a huge Bjork fan, but I like her for being an innovative musician. She seems a little weird, but I she's never done anything that bothered me, so... why not?
(Note: for the folks who disagree with her political views, I understand why they might not like her, but her politics don't really bother me.)
The link takes you to Symantec's website - you know, the company that wants to make everyone think they need to buy anti-virus for Android.
Neither the blog post on Symantec's website, or the /. summary say whether the Trojan is in any Android app store, which is obviously the most important piece of information. After all, any duffus can sit at home and write (some forms) of Android malware and post it to their website.
The fact that Symantec would post something like this on their website is not a surprise - it's their website they can post what they want. But the fact that it got posted on slashdot....
A culture that valued intellectual pursuits probably helped. That culture has largely dried up when it comes to other pursuits like chess or poetry, but being interested in computers doesn't result in the same categorization as a nerd as in some other countries.
There are in fact an enormous number of legitimate software businesses in Russia, which the Slashdot crowd seems largely unaware of. However, not everyone feels that they have the savvy of starting a formal business, which involves navigating bureaucracy and in some regions brings one up against bribe-expecting officials. Crime just seems easier to some set of people.
If the Golden Rule were really common sense, we wouldn't have to be reminded of it by every religious teacher or moral philosopher that has come along in history.
Bjork is a beautiful ice faerie, and I would woo her away from her snowy fortress if only I had the opportunity. Check out Pagan Poetry. The Perfecto remix of this is pretty good too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbFSqOWSbNg
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.